In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

So apparently the details are now up for sale on the dark web!

What do you mean now ?

Those websites offering stolen card details have been running for the last 10 years.

You've completely missed the context of the post....

I know about dark web, what I was saying was the TalkTalk details are now on their too...

Read the post please!

Edited by mlmclaren (Wed 28-Oct-15 12:30:01)

No, it is YOU who needs to read your own linked article.
The article says NOTHING about TT stolen details now being on the web
It is a general article about how UK citizens in general are being stolen regularly and put on the "dark web"

Well the TalkTalk details weren't up for sale a week ago where they!

and the fact the article has been written with TalkTalk recent issue as the main story, it has a lot of relevance towards TalkTalk

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3292539/Baby...

Hmm, what next.

"Daily Mail calls on government to ban video games and single mothers"

The hate campaign towards TalkTalk, rather than receding, appears to be escalating. Spreading widespread FUD - both in the mainstream media and online - and provoking a customer backlash and mass exodus from the company. All key to driving the stock price even lower; enabling greater profits for short-sellers; and inviting idle speculation on TalkTalk's future.

Today, the mass-market Daily Mail published a template letter for panicking customers, encouraging its half-baked readers to exit the telco en masse. The tabloid reckons there are sufficient grounds - because of the alleged data breach - to rescind consumer contracts with the company. TalkTalk states otherwise.

Yesterday saw TalkTalk shares recover slightly; as the hedge funds which had been 'shorting' the stock unwound their positions, banking their gains to date. Doubtless doubling their profits out of the 'uptick' from their 'short squeeze"!

Earlier in the year it was revealed that an astonishing 18 per cent of the company's free-float stock was loaned out to short-sellers. Exploiting the fact that much of the company's equity - the long-term shareholdings of Dunstone, Ross, Harding, and TalkTalk's Employee Share Ownership Trust - is out of circulation; stock closed-off to speculators. But leaving those vulture hedge funds with just enough clout to manipulate the price of what stock remains.

Today, the press is predicting the end of TalkTalk could be nigh; and that a hostile takeover bid may soon seal its fate. Possibly a takeover dressed up as an "act of mercy". The generous suitor "salvaging" the troubled telco from potential collapse. Stifling competition fears in Britain and Europe by pitching itself as benevolent saviour rather than pouncing predator.

Mouthpiece of the City of London, the Financial Times claims that TalkTalk's price is now low enough to attract such a predator. The paper identifies Vodafone as one potential buyer.

Has TalkTalk's stock hit rock bottom though? TalkTalk suffered a further decline of 5 per cent today to 252p - as the media intensified its attacks on the telco. With scaremongers at Morgan Stanley claiming that TalkTalk was already in trouble, even before the alleged data breach; losing market share to rival Sky. Or so they reckon:

From the FT today:

Morgan Stanley warned that customer growth at the broadband provider was likely to turn negative and margin guidance for the next financial year looked a stretch. Its survey suggested TalkTalk was losing market share to Sky even before the hack.

Reputational damage meant TalkTalk would struggle both to attract customers and raise prices for its existing base, after two tariff increases in 12 months, Morgan Stanley told clients in an overnight note.

In contrast to the gloom around TalkTalk, dominant force BT smooched the market with news that its merger with mobile operator EE has been nodded through by competition authorities.

From the FT:

Gavin Patterson, BT’s chief executive, welcomed the decision [by the CMA] saying the merger would increase investment and innovation.

But TalkTalk said it was “concerned” by the findings, noting that the watchdog was “divided over its findings in wholesale mobile”.

Kester Mann, an analyst at CCS Insight, said the fact that BT will not be required to make any changes to its offer to soothe competition concerns was a “particular victory for the company”. But he added that the approval would add weight to calls by rivals for a structural separation of Openreach, its fixed-line broadband network which provides services to rivals as well as BT’s retail operation. The issue is being considered as part of a review of the UK’s digital economy by Ofcom, the telecoms regulator.

Through one means or another, City financiers are determined to consolidate the telecoms sector; meaning fewer and fewer choices for broadband subscribers. Loss of competition being an outcome which rarely benefits consumers. Not to mention the mass redundancies in the industry which will inevitably follow.

Food for thought for the TalkTalk naysayers among us:-- a budget and beleaguered telco it may be, but is the market better off with or without it?

Edited by edwincluck (Thu 29-Oct-15 07:03:23)

The EU sometime ago signaled a change in tack with the appointment of the new EU commissioner for telecoms
They said, as I recall, that indeed excessive competition had driven down prices to the extent that infrastructure investment was not being done.

So they were making noises about how mega mergers will now be approved and that some form of exclusivity might be necessary to give a guaranteed return necessary over a period of years to make the investment worthwhile.

Which means - yes you are all actually going to have to pay more for it!

Edited by zom22 (Wed 28-Oct-15 22:03:34)

Am i missing something here? Where in the T&C when you sign up with any company does it say you can tear up the contract effectively if there is a data breach?

The T&Cs state that TalkTalk will not divulge your personal information to third parties without your permission. One could logically argue that they did not willingly divulge anything and that it was through an illegal act that third parties acquired this information.

I believe it also states it will protect or safeguard your information which it failed to do.

Hence the letter template in the paper that was actually created by the CAG.

All sounds a little woolly to me but what do I know! :-!

In reply to a post by bernado:

So much for an organised jihadist attack, a fifteen year old boy in [Ulster] has just been arrested

We might have predicted this -- COPS NAB NERDY YOUTH IN HUGE TELCO ATTACK!

It was almost inevitable. Allowing the newspapers to wax smugly that "if a baby-faced little eejit can hack TalkTalk just imagine how lax its security must be! Tsk!"

It reads like pre-scripted tabloid copy. Even the kid's arrest looks staged or faked. A child perp-walked on the front page of the Daily Mail. The cops are forever doing this. When stung by critics for "not doing enough" to solve some heinous crime. Upstaging events with a dramatic dawn raid on some hapless ne'er-do-well; ideally a foreigner if one's knocking about. Inevitably nothing ever comes of it. But it looks great on the front pages.

Then we had that former detective -- practising for the role of drama-queen in this year's panto -- declaring the alleged data breach to be “one of the BIGGEST crimes ever. It is the GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY of the 21st century"!, the ex-cop - now a "security expert" -- feverishly told the Daily Mirror.

Keeping firmly on script, the security consultant sombrely warns: “There is a potentially HUGE liability for Talk Talk as a result of this. Future compensation payments could PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS”!

Except even the most avaricious estimate only puts the potential compo figure at £20m. Which works out at just a fiver per customer.

Ironically, TalkTalk's crippling early-exit penalties of up to £360 per customer could see the telco actually make more money here, out of the fleeing customer-base!

And the Cameron gummint, never ones to be outshone in any theatrical production, announced that it too will be holding an inquiry of its own into the alleged data breach. Which will usefully return the "scandal" to the front pages of the future. Allowing extra pressure to be brought to bear on TalkTalk; for the benefit of shadowy City interests seeking to eliminate the telco and acquire its assets at silly-season prices.

Edited by edwincluck (Thu 29-Oct-15 06:57:19)